


Here We Are

by AndyAO3



Series: somewhere (there's a place for us) [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Feels, M/M, Monster Reaper, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 04:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8087506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndyAO3/pseuds/AndyAO3
Summary: Reaper's story wasn't supposed to have romance elements, but it seems like Jack didn't get that particular memo.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This went through about eight different working titles before I settled on this one. I feel like the theme behind this title really fits, y'know? Reaper's practically an amalgamation himself. Speaking of, I didn't go into great detail about how much of a monster!reaper thing is going on here, but I will say that it's worse when he's this upset. Someone give this man a hug. (Jack came close, but Gabe poofed before he really got the chance.) 
> 
> PS: this took me a couple weeks because I started it back when I thought we'd have some sombra info by this point, I eventually got tired of waiting and finished it anyway, might end up editing if anything I wrote clashes with any new information we get. bloop.

It was a standoff.

Two men, the same height but different in build. One with as American a color scheme as one could get short of being star-spangled, the other in black from his hooded head to his steel-guarded toes. A short biker jacket versus a long, menacing coat. A visor versus a mask. A pulse rifle versus dual shotguns.

One was out of ammo; the other, out of guns. Standing just out of arms' reach from one another, having the world's most heated staring contest in a London alleyway.

"Your move, Jack," Reaper drawled.

"You first," came the response.

Seconds later, they were on each other. Again, evenly matched-- although whether that was because one or both of them was holding back, it was impossible to say. Weapons were abandoned in favor of fists. Reaper would slam 76 into a wall; 76 would flip their positions and pin him with an arm over his throat. Reaper would shift out of it, rematerializing behind 76 to get him in a headlock, only for 76 to use the additional leverage to throw Reaper to the concrete. They grappled, they punched, they kicked, they clawed. The back alley they fought in was forgotten, all the background noise of the city around them fading into a dull hum that was drowned out quickly by adrenaline-fueled heartbeats. Their entire world narrowed to the two of them, opposite but equal.

Later, Reaper would swear that Jack let him get the upper hand, allowed the blow that left his visor half in pieces on the cracked cobblestone street. This was partly because Reaper couldn't stomach the idea of Jack having gotten slow with age.

76 staggered back, breathing hard, one hand going up reflexively to shield his bleeding face; the fact that he wasn't looking directly at Reaper should've read like an opportunity to give him a rightfully deserved beating, but all it did was give the monster pause. Why was Jack stopping? They'd barely gotten started.

"Looks like this round's yours, Gabe," Jack said.

Reaper froze, tense behind the mask. A feeling of wrongness itched at the back of his mind, tugging at the sleeves of the manic part of him that wanted to keep fighting, that had waited for so long to kick the great Jack Morrison to the curb, that had imagined a thousand different scenarios wherein the former Strike Commander ended up very, very dead.

Jack wasn't supposed to surrender. That wasn't how it was meant to work.

After several moments, Reaper straightened and forced a laugh. Pushed forward with a confidence he didn't feel, crowing in spite of himself. "That's it?" he prodded. Playing the part. "The eternal boy scout's just," here he stepped forth, closed the gap, seized Jack's face with claws digging into the remains of the broken visor to yank him closer, " _giving up_?"

"Something like that," Jack rasped; a gloved hand shot up to snatch Reaper's wrist, but it was only a token resistance at best. Grasping, holding, but not stopping him. "Gonna kill me?"

So many times he'd been asked that question in the scenes he'd painted for himself in his mind. Every time, the answer had been the same. Why was he hesitating? There was no question of whether or not the man was deserving. Morrison had been the worst of all. Claws raked over plastic, leaving furrows in their wake. Jack's breath caught; Reaper snarled behind the mask, annoyed.

(He knew why Gabriel Reyes would hesitate. Knew it all too well. Hated the reason, because it was the worst reason to hesitate that any man could ever have. It was a weak, pathetic reason that clouded his ability to think clearly; its existence was part of why Reaper was so adamant that Morrison needed to die. It would enslave him all over again otherwise.)

"What's with this?" Reaper asked instead of answering, tapping a claw against the visor. Stalling so that he could win the war going on inside his own head. "Can't breathe or something?"

He could _hear_ Jack's grin. "Changing the subject, huh?"

Asshole. "Answer the question."

"You first."

"I'm not the one seriously risking getting his throat torn out," Reaper reminded him, digging those claws into the plastic briefly before letting go; Jack staggered back, brows furrowed. "Take it off."

"Why?"

"I'd like to see the look in your eyes when I kill you."

It was a weak excuse and Reaper knew it; he could tell Jack knew it too by the way he jerked his head sharply in the wraith's direction. In truth, he just wanted to _see_. He couldn't explain the urge if he tried.

(Or at least he didn't want to think about it too hard. Didn't want to risk awakening that long-dead part of him that cared. The stress of having to feel things was kicking his body's broken cycle of degeneration and regeneration into overdrive already, burning him up from the inside even as he was. Thinking would only upset him further, make it worse. Seeing Jack's face might make it worse too, but it might settle the part of him that practically ached with longing for something that had been too far gone to retrieve even before the explosion.)

Reaper straightened as Jack sighed and reached for the broken visor, stiffening at the faint hiss of seals being released. More shards fell and clinked faintly on the ground as it shifted, falling away in the old soldier's hands. There he stood-- Jack Morrison, former Strike Commander. A scarred old man, eyes unfocused and dull. Resigned, defeated.

Blind, Reaper realized after a few seconds. Blind or nearly so.

"Not much to look at these days," Jack said, halfway to a smile. He sounded like his throat had been scraped raw. "No one's gonna be putting me on any more posters anytime soon."

Reaper's answer was almost automatic; "good. Your ego was already the size of the moon."

Jack laughed. Really _laughed_ , ducking his head like he used to as if to hide his genuine amusement, the sound rough and warm. "So you always tell me."

Always. For a split second, Reaper was struck dumb. All that was left in his place was Reyes. "Jack," he breathed. Barely recognizing the sound of his own voice, because he sounded more like himself in that moment than he had in years.

The tired old man in front of him smiled, an expression made crooked by scarring. "Love you too, Gabe."

Like flipping a switch. The anger, the hurt, the betrayal-- all of it came rushing back, flooding his psyche. Drowning Reyes under all the thoughts that had turned him into Reaper to begin with. He was barely aware of moving, crossing the gap between them in an instant. Snatching at the old soldier's throat, slamming him against the wall again. Jack winced, choked, and Reaper forced himself not to care as he dug his claws in.

It had been the last lie Morrison had told him, back then. He remembered it through the agony of death, words he'd clung to as he fought against his end in spite of knowing it was inevitable.

He remembered, and the memory had his blood boiling even without the nanotech. "You don't get to say that shit to me, Morrison," Reaper snarled. "You lost your right to it a long time ago."

"Yeah?" Jack wheezed, cracking another smile. "So I don't get to make statements now, huh?"

Reaper's grip tightened. "You don't get to _lie_."

"Wasn't-- wasn't lying."

"You _abandoned me_. You left me behind to die." Sneering, Reaper reached for his own mask with his free hand and tore it off, flinging it aside. That close, even Jack would be able to see what death had done to him.

And Jack definitely saw it. That horrified look said everything there was to say.

"You're the reason I'm like this," he said. Jack flinched visibly. "I gave up everything for you, and this is how you repaid me."

"I'm sorry," Jack rasped. Barely audible. Reaper growled at the memories it dredged up, thoughts of a bright-eyed blond that apologized too goddamn much. _I'm sorry, Gabe. I love you._ All the time. Like just showing it wasn't enough to be understood. Like the thousands of little ways they just clicked together might not be adequate. He'd hated it because he knew Jack only acted that way out of habit; it made him want to punch whoever had turned it into a habit in the first place, while hoping to God that it wasn't him.

Now, he only hated that this version of Morrison was making him remember the Jack he knew. Tricking him into thinking he was hurting the bright-eyed, apologetic kid, and not the Strike-Commander that'd had it coming for so long. Making him seethe with the memory of what it was like to be happy and loved and not in pain, like being taunted with what he couldn't have anymore.

He didn't realize his grip had loosened until he heard Jack sigh, felt gloved hands come up and encircle his wrist. "Gabriel."

"Don't." Reaper sounded weak and small even to his own ears.

"Someone has to." One of those hands shifted, trailing over what remained of his cheek; Reaper squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in a sharp breath, shaking his head. "Hey. It's okay."

"No it fucking _isn't_ ," came the quiet protest.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is." He didn't have to look to know Jack was smiling. He could see it in his mind's eye, and he hated that he could still picture it so well, as Jack's thumb stroked somewhere near the corner of his eye. "Weren't you the one who always told me it was okay to feel things and be human sometimes?"

That was someone else. That was Reyes, not Reaper. Another life. "I think that only applies to people who are actually human, Jack."

"Getting pissed off at a convoluted thread of logic that only makes sense in your head sounds like a human thing to me, Gabe."

"It makes perfect sense. You're just a dumbass."

Jack chuckled. "Yeah, no argument there. You're usually right to be pissed at me anyways."

Reaper's hand slid away from the old soldier's throat, trailing down along his collar, over the cracked leather of the man's fucking stupid jacket. He could barely find it in himself to be angry anymore. At everything else, sure, but... "I should kill you," he said.

"I won't stop you," Jack replied.

"Why?"

"Plenty of reasons." That wasn't an answer. "I meant what I said, Gabe."

 _I love you. I'm sorry._ Words that rang in Reaper's head still. Keeping him alive, if only so he could get back at the ones who'd tricked him with them. Because he'd been tricked, hadn't he? "You used me and left me to die."

"I watched you die. Had to be sedated for the rescue crew to drag me out." A correction, but a gentle one. Like Jack wasn't trying to prove him wrong so much as just trying to get the facts straight. Like being in the wrong was fine, but Gabriel being wrong wasn't. "You didn't deserve any of this. I was the one who had it coming." Like he'd go back and fix it if he could.

It was too much.

Without warning, Reaper shifted out of Jack's grasp, rematerializing several meters away. He couldn't take anymore. Couldn't stand the way Jack looked at him like he was everything about the world that was worth saving. There was a promise inherent in a look like that, like everything was going to be okay.

But monsters whose skin had a penchant for sloughing off in billowing plumes of smoke didn't get to have happy endings. Wraiths that took shape with too many teeth and blackened eyes, that sucked the life out of corpses to stave off some of the pain of existing, weren't allowed to have everything turn out alright. The most he'd ever let himself hope for was some closure, and now he couldn't even have that. Couldn't bring himself to take it.

Jack's hand hung in the air a moment before falling uselessly to his side; he smiled, his eyes losing their focus now that Reaper had gone too far for him to see clearly. "Yeah. Alright. You don't have to forgive me, it's okay. Still my fault for not listening, even before that."

Reaper said nothing.

"I'm not gonna pretend I wasn't happy to find out you were alive, either," he continued. "Even... Even like this. Selfish, I know." Damn right it was. "Just getting to see you, after everything-- you don't know, you weren't the one who, who had to _watch_."

"You weren't the one who died," Reaper shot back.

"Spent a lot of time wishing I had." Jack sounded lost, broken. Still smiling, but it was a tentative and shaky thing. "Spent a lot more time wishing you hadn't."

Well, good job wishing on a fucking star then, because Reaper wasn't about to kick the bucket again anytime soon. "Makes two of us," he grumbled.

"You could still kill me if it'd make you feel better."

No, not really. Reaper made a great big show of scoffing at that, making an exaggerated dismissive sort of gesture just so that Jack could see it. "No point," he said. "Seems to me like Strike-Commander Morrison's already dead."

The old soldier blinked for a minute, startled; Reaper left before the man could respond.

Sombra was going to give him so much shit for this one.

 


End file.
